


Care

by HK44



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Family Feels, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, bruce and damian are emotionally stunted individuals, jason is a good big brother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 12:21:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13717584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HK44/pseuds/HK44
Summary: In which Jason shouts at Bruce and Bruce finally listens





	Care

“Bruce, he broke himself for you. He changed himself for you! When are you going to suck it up and tell him that you fucking give a shit about him outside of Robin?” Jason pointed an angry finger at him. “I’m tired of this. I’m tired of Damian trying to seek your approval by hurting himself because it’s the only thing he knows how to do. You always said you want better for us, better for  _him_ , and  _yet_ -”

Jason cut himself off, shaking. Finally he found his voice again, his  _nerve._ “And yet you do nothing to fix him. You just rode in on Dick’s coattails and pretended like he was your masterpiece. He’s not. He’s Dick’s. And if you want him to stop being  _reckless_ , then maybe remember this. The League told him he had to be the best and forced him to take risks, do things that could kill him, and praised him for doing those things.

“He’s not doing it because he’s stupid. He doesn’t do it around Dick because he listens to Dick  _more,_  but because Dick’s made it clear that’s not how to gain his approval. He’s doing it because that what he knows to get someone to tell him he did a good job and that’s all he fucking wants from you. So get over yourself and fucking tell him that, instead of shouting at him about the mistakes he made and then telling him he did good on the times he does stupid shit and  _doesn’t_  break his arm.”

As he stalked away he wasn’t expecting Bruce to whirl around and catch him by the arm. This wasn’t their first fight, especially not about Damian, and whenever Jason walked off, Bruce let him.

“You don’t think I’ve  _tried_ ,” he growled, grip tightening on Jason’s arm. “You don’t think I didn’t  _figure_ that out? He doesn’t listen-”

Jason swung around, wrenched his arm out of Bruce’s grip and  _shoved_  him back. “Fuck off, Bruce. He listens. He listens  _to everyone_. Me, Dick, Cass,  _fucking_   _replacement_. He listens. He does what you tell him to do. He pays attention. And he makes  _stupid_  mistakes because he thinks he’s right, because that’s what the League  _drilled_  into his head.”

Gesturing widlly, his hands balled up into fists so tight his fingers were numbing over, he snapped, “You treat him like they did. You feed him. You put clothes on his back, a roof over his head. And then shove him out into a bad  _bad_  world, tell him to run free and still somehow keep him contained because you don’t  _trust_  him-”

“He doesn’t trust me!” Bruce shouted back. “If he did, he wouldn’t question-”

“SHUT UP!” Jason yelled, about ten seconds from knocking Bruce a new one. “You don’t give him a reason to trust you! He doesn’t understand you! You tell him that the League was bad, the way they used him was  _bad_  and then treat him the exact same way!  _HE’D DIE FOR YOU AND YOU DON’T CARE_.”

Bruce froze, his whole body stilling as Jason’s words echoed through the Cave.

Jason drew back, panting. He rubbed his jaw. “Bruce, you fucking need to get it through your head. Damian  _wants_  you to love him. He wants you to treat him like you treat Dick and Tim and Cass.”  _Like you used to treat me_. “But you don’t and that makes him think he’s doing something wrong so  _he goes back to what he knows_. Do a reckless thing, survive and it doesn’t matter what bones you broke, how many times you were  _stabbed_ , how close you are to actually  _dying_ , someone at the end of it is going to tell you how proud they are of you.

“And that’s what you do. You send mixed messages. You shout at him that he fucked up, that he shouldn’t have broken his arm, his leg, his  _fucking collarbone_ , like you suddenly remembered he’s a  _kid_ , and then turn around and tell him how glad you are that he got the bad guy anyway. He thinks this is what you want from him, Bruce. And if you actually  _fucking_  knew that, you wouldn’t be standing here telling me that I’m  _wrong_. And Damian wouldn’t be in bed trying to figure out the best way to continue training without breaking his arm even further.”

Jason grabbed his jacket off the control panel and slung it over his shoulder. “Make up your mind. Be a dad to him or let him go do his own shit without you. Because I’m tired of watching him break himself for someone who hasn’t even told him that he loves him yet.”

* * *

 

Damian tried to angle his arm in the sling just enough so that he could flick to the next page of his book. A knock at his door caught his attention before he could. He squeezed his eyes shut, wished his arm wasn’t  _broken_  so he could pinch the bridge of his nose, and snapped, “Pennyworth, for the last time, I’m  _fine_. I don’t need anymore-” The door eased open and he stopped. He closed his book around his thumb and sat up. “Father.”

Father stood in his doorway, eyes unreadable, just like Mother’s. It was always baffling how they could be so similiar and yet so different.

“Can I come in?”

Damian shrugged. “You already opened the door,” he muttered, looking down to the colouful cover of his book. He wasn’t really in the mood to be shouted at.

Father settled down on the edge of the bed, back to Damian, and Damian relaxed. Good. Whenever Father did this, it meant he was going to say something emotional, not something cruel.

He rarely, if ever, looked Damian in the eye when he was going to say something along the lines of “I’m proud of you”. That was one of the differences with Mother.

“Damian, I don’t want you to do that again,” he said quietly. And Damian frowned.

“What?”

“Next time, I don’t want you risking yourself like that again.”

Damian scowled. “He was going to get away! Everyone else was  _occupied_. Was I just supposed to let him run free and go reform his gang again?”

Father shifted, just enough so Damian could see the side of his face, framed annoyingly well in the low light. “Damian, you could’ve called for support or-”

“I don’t  _need_  support. I can fight one pathetic excuse for a mobster on my own and-”

“You got shot!”

“-I’ve  _done it before_.” Damian narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t hear you complain the last time I did it. And if you’re going to berate me about this  _again_ , wait until Pennyworth pumps me full of drugs. I don’t need to be screamed at when my body is already doing that.” He reopened his book and steadied his eyes on the first line.

He read nothing. The words wouldn’t process. 

Father frowned, his arms tensing as his fingers gripped at Damain’s sheet. “If you know you’re going to get hurt, then why-”

“Because it doesn’t matter,” Damian snapped, his book falling shut again. “If doesn’t matter so long as the plan succeeds, so long as  _I_ succeed. Which I did. He’s in custody.”

“And you’re in bed with a broken arm, recovering from two bullet wounds.”

Damian rolled his eyes. “I could say the same for you on a number of occassions, Father. Do not be a hypocrite.”

“You’re a child. It’s different.”

His fingers tightened on the edge of his book. “I believe I made my stance clear so if you’re going to just  _complain_  about me, go do it with Drake.”

Father didn’t leave, just stared at him with those stupid unreadable eyes and a thin lipped grimace. Finally, he shifted around enough that his thigh was half pulled up onto the bed and he could face Damian fully. “You look like your mother.”

Damian stilled. Then scoffed. “Impossible. She created me to be  _you_.”

The dig was clear.

 _This is your fault_.

He felt childishly pleased with the quick scance of pain that blurred through Father’s eyes and then annoyed when it vanished too quickly.

“Maybe,” Father said at last. He pushed back Damian’s hair. “But you still look like her.”

“What exactly is your  _point_?” He cocked his head. “Is this your way of telling me you want me to be a girl?”

Now Father looked offended. “Damian-”

“Because I’m quite  _pleased_  with being a boy and you said you had no issues with it when Mother dropped me off here the first time.” He looked back at his book, reopening it, determined to ignore Father and  _read. “_ She cares too much for me to be left alone with an imbecile not caught up on  _gender_.”

Father licked his lips, frowning low. “She’s told you that?”

Damian rolled his eyes. “Of course. She tells me she cares for me all the time. Every letter, every accidental meeting, she wants me to remember that. I think she fears I’m forgetting my roots.” Absentmindedly he rubbed his sling-casted arm against his abdomen. How could he though?

Father rubbed his thigh. “Damian-”

Damian squeezed his eyes shut. “Father, I’m not in the mood to discuss my mother. Please come back when I’m  _drugged_ and won’t remember it.”

Sighing deeply, Father rose to his feet, unsteadily bouncing on the heels. He was acting like Grayson.

Or perhaps, it was that Grayson acted like  _him._

Damian had never seen his father so out of sorts before. Tired? Sure. Exasperated? Of course. Angry? Definitely. Concerned? It was his default face when it came to any of them.

Uncomfortably awkwardly nervous?

No.

“Damian,” he started again, turning to face Damian. He cleared his throat.

“Just spit it out already!” Damian huffed. “You’re beginning to annoy me and broken arm or not, I will shove you out of this room, if I must.”

Father pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, I’m just. I’m trying to let you know that I… that I care about you, Damian.”

“I know that already! You say it every time I hurt myself.” He coughed low and Father’s deep timbre fell out of his mouth. “Damian, I just don’t want you to get hurt again. Despite what you may think, I care about you and caring means I can’t take it when you’re injured. Even so, I’m happy that you got the insert-madman-of-choice but please do not do this again.” He gestured loosely with his good arm. “It’s a pattern at this point. And you already said it earlier.” He pulled his book back into his view and looked back at it. “You don’t need to say it again.”

Father stared at him. “Oh.” His voice felt faint. “Well alright then.” He cleared his throat. “Um-” He looked around the room, like he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do.

 _Leave_ , Damian thought.  _Just go_.

He didn’t.

He settled down on the edge of the bed again all the way at the edge to the point where Damian couldn’t even  _graze_  him with his foot.

“My parents told me that they cared for me all the time,” he said. Damian frowned.  _What_? “And I said it back all the time. And I said it on my own without prompting. And then they died and I was scared.”

“Okay?” Damian tried to remember what Grayson and Colin and Brown said about  _empathy_. “I’m… sorry?”

Father shook his head, his back tensing. “I was scared of telling people I loved them because it felt like a promise to stay. And they didn’t. So I stopped.”

Damian closed hsi eyes, feeling exhausted. “I don’t really understand-”

“I love you, Damian.” Father stood to face. “You do know that?”

It was on the tip of Damian’s tongue. Of course, he knew. How could Father be so ridiculous to think that Damian wasn’t aware he cared.

But the lie wouldn’t fall.

He swallowed it and shook his head. “No. I was not aware.” He cleared his throat. “You’ve never said it. And you’re not like… like Drake or Todd. You’ve never made it clear.”

“I’m sorry,” Father said. He walked over to Damian side and pulled himself onto the bed, his thigh pressed warmly against Damian’s side. “I should’ve done better with you.”

Damian shrugged. “It’s fine. It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me.” 

Damian shook his head. “Love is useless. Mother loves you but that means nothing. She won’t stay with you. She won’t stay with me. Grayson loves me but he still left me when you came back.”

“And my mother told me she loved me and she died.” Father patted Damian’s knee. “Just because someone leaves, doesn’t mean they care about you any less.”

“I know that,” Damian snapped. “It’s just pointless to echo it if you’re going to.”

Father nodded slowly. Damian didn’t like the look in his eyes. This was going to turn into a thing, into a  _talk_.

Damian hated Father’s  _talks_.

Finally Father leaned back and eyed him. “Why did you think I didn’t love you?”

He looked at Father.  _No lies_ , he thought. “You told me. After you came back. Ivy’s poison. It made people reveal truths uncontrollably. You got hit with it and like all the others, when it faded you forgot what you said to me. And I said you didn’t say anything to me, which was a lie.” Damian cast his eyes down. “You said you couldn’t love a monster. I accepted that. I moved on.”

“Damian-”

“You said you only took me in because I was blood. I already knew this. You said you took me back because you thought I’d kill Grayson. Because you wanted to monitor me. Because you didn’t trust me. I accepted it.” He rubbed his thumb over the expanse of the book’s cover. “Why would I assume anything had changed?”

“I didn’t know.”

“It doesn’t matter. It was your truth. Even if it was old.” He bit his lip. “You knew I was alive and let me stay with the League after Mother took me back. You didn’t really care until Grayson fixed me and even then it wasn’t enough for you.” He shrugged. “I assumed nothing would be.

“But then you brought me back and I thought maybe things had changed. And then I realized it was a window of opportunity, not anything real. If the same thing had happened with anyone else, if it’d happened with Todd, you would have done it as well. There wouldn’t have been hesitation.”

“I didn’t hesitate,” Father cut in. “I wanted you back.”

“So did Grandfather.” Damian licked his lips. “I know what I am, Father. You don’t need to pretend.”

“I’m not pretending anything, Damian.” He leaned over and kissed the top of Damian’s head. “Don’t ever think I am. I love you so much.” He brushed back Damian’s hair. “When Jason died, I was devastated. When you died, I was destroyed. And then I got him back and I got you back and everything was different but it felt  _better.”_ He stroked the side of Damian’s face softly. “And then I heard the gunshots last night and I couldn’t find you among the crowd and I  _panicked_. Because I can’t lose you again.”

Damian frowned. “What did you do?”

“A  _lot_ of stupid things,” Father admitted quietly and the image of a dozen broken bodies paving the way to Damian flooded back to Damain’s mind. Cain had been with him when they’d grabbed Damian after he’d finished with the mobster.

He’d assumed…

He’d assumed they were her fault. It was characteristic of her, when she was concerned about the others, to hurt a little more than need be, to fall back into old patterns.

He’d never considered that it might’ve been Father.

“I thought that was Cain.”

“Yes, I realize that. And some were. Most of them…” Father closed his eyes. “I’m not losing my son a second time. It was miserable when I lost him the first time.”

Damian shivered.

It was like when Grayson laughed and slung his arm around Damian’s shoulders and whispered in his ear, “This is why I love you, Damian” after some scathing remark Damian had uttered about the clown at the fair.

And Damian didn’t understand it.

He  _still_  didn’t understand it.

But he laid his book down on his lap and grabbed Father’s hand with his good one. “I’ll try to do better. Next time.”

Father nodded. “Thank you.” He slid off the bed to his feet and leaned over, kissing the top of Damian’s head, hands cupped warm around Damian’s cheeks. It was a weird gesture but Damian had seen it before. Other parents. Other children.

Other families.

He relaxed into and almost missed the comfort of being held as Father stepped away.

“I was wrong, by the way,” Father said, stilling at the doorway. “Back then. I made a mistake not seeing you as you as are.” He leaned agains the door and glance back at Damian. “I’m sorry.”

Damian shook his head. “It’s fine. I was a monster, I know that.”

“You were a child. A better man would’ve recognized that.” Father ran his finger over the wood. “And a better man did. And I’m grateful for that. I can’t imagine not having you in my life, Damian. And I can’t think of what would’ve happen to you if you’d stayed with the League. When I do, I…“ He swallowed thickly. “I regret letting them keep you in the first place. The things I could’ve prevented if I told Talia, she couldn’t take you back.”

Damian thought about the scar that stretched from his abdomen to the top of his shoulder. The darkness of it against the rest of his skin. The way Grayson reacted so poorly to it.

The way Father looked at it the first time Damian changed in the Cave.

How he twitched when Damian told him how he got it in the years after the first time they’d met.

Devastation, Damian realized.

That was what it was in his eyes that night.

Damian’s finger brushed over the spot where it started and shook his head. “I’m here now. That’s what matters.”

Father smiled. “Good point.”

**Author's Note:**

> This feels out of my element because I normally write Bruce and Damian pretty much at each other all the time but meh. Hope you guys like it!
> 
> [Tumblr](http://happyk44.tumblr.com/post/170990749747/bruce-he-broke-himself-for-you-he-changed)||[Insta](http://instagram.com/hk44_art)


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